Spec Ops: The Line - A 2nd opinion? I don't know.

[DeadpanLunatic]

I have removed my words from this site.

 

[IronMit]

I won't know until I play it again.

What I can say is that I WANT to play it again. It was a good experience. Yh the cover shooting is tedious but at the same time you really get a sense of what frame of mind Walker is in.

The action (gameplay) actually re-enforces the narrative which is rarer then you might think;

note how brutal the executions get as the game goes on
'Tango down' to 'I f*king got him'
Reloading to 'I'm f*king Reloading!!'

It impacted how I played and I felt under more stress too.

Games have cutscenes simply inserted between gameplay segments to tell the story. These can be interchangeable and it won't really effect anything.

Even if you subtract all the in the face 4th wall, PTS, wanting to be a hero themes and mirroring...spec ops the line still pulled off what most shooters can't do anyway

I trade in a lot of games; I traded in Dishonoured, Assassins Creed, Hitman & even Skyrim immediately after reaching the end. But Spec ops ...nah I'm putting that in my 'keeps' selection with Deus EX:HR, MGS4, Uncharted2, Dark souls

 

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

It will never cease to amaze me how people manage to so thoroughly miss the point of Spec Ops: The Line or think that they are experiencing the game to its fullest while doing everything in their power to go against it, only to be let down when, surprise surprise, the game designed to point out everything troubling about linear modern warfare shooters, asks that you be linear about playing it.

Sorry if I seem cross, for I don't mean to; you're probably one of the more reasonable people I've seen disagree with The Line. It's just that I think you're going about the game in entirely the wrong way.

The Line is purposefully constructed to be a parody and satire of everything that Yager (a German company) feels is wrong or questionable about American, modern warfare shooters. It honestly seems like you've cut yourself off from anyone talking about the game, period, though. You're looking at it in a vacuum, and it does not exist in one in the least.

I'l get to the point. Look, when you play Modern Warfare 3 or Black Ops or whatever, your go through a series of rooms, kill all the dudes in the room, and advance to the next one. There are set pieces and the like, sure, but for the most part, you advance by killing dudes and walking past them. All the while, you witness some utter military pornography and a ceaseless string of jingoistic choruses shouting "AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!"

And it's always the right thing to do. You are always the good guy (read: the Americans/Westerners) always fighting the bad guys (read: terrorists or Russians), and no matter how badly things might go on a mission, it all works out in the end. Good guys win, bad guys lose, everything's hunky dory.

In Spec Ops, you do much the same thing (kill dudes, walk past them), but rarely is it ever the right thing to do, even temporarily. You try to figure out what's going on in Dubai, and you murder scared people who were hiding from the Damned 33rd. You try to rescue Gould and civilians die. You try to help the CIA agent and condemn everyone in Dubai to die of thirst. The entire thing is set up as a means of examining why it's so weird that killing everyone who isn't you is, from a gameplay standpoint, the right thing to do.

Think about how many times Walker says "I did what I had to do." He says it quite a lot when questioned about his decisions to use white phosphorus, destroy Dubai's water supply, and murder all the well-meaning American troops who were trying to stop him. The player, upon having the game question their actions, probably says something similar, such as "I couldn't progress any other way" or something.

Of course you couldn't. That's the fucking point. In any modern warfare game, the linear path of gameplay is always the right thing to do. In The Line, it almost never is. Other game congratulate you for following their path - The Line asks you what the hell is the matter with you that you're okay with screwing up everything the Dubai people have in order to satisfy some narrative curiosity, or to have fun.

This might seem surprisingly simple, but considering how masturbatory the triple-A game industry is and how bloated with modern warfare shooters it is, I think it isn't as surprising as one would initially suspect.

 

[holdthephone]

It will never cease to amaze me how people manage to so thoroughly miss the point of Spec Ops: The Line

I don't think it's possible to miss the point of Spec Ops. The game's message didn't fly over my head, it couldn't have. It's flying too low to the ground for that to happen. And because of that I think the playthrough lacked power. That's my dig at the game, eat me alive for it (you're not, I know), but don't say I missed the entire point of the experience. I have a habit of reaching pretty far with game analysis, to the point of sounding a bit starry eyed and incredulous myself, so I'm more than comfortable with what Spec Ops is doing here. It's pretty down to earth stuff.

 

[SpaceCop]

"None of this would have happened if you had just stopped."

The Line gives us situations where we know we'll have to do horrific things to progress. So why do we continue? And after we blunder from atrocity to atrocity, why are we surprised that our actions aren't vindicated?

"We didn't have a choice!" to quote Walker directly. While Walker justifies his murderous rampage up until it is completely impossible to deny things were his fault, we the audience shift responsibility from ourselves and onto the game itself. We aren't bad people! We were just looking for something to entertain us! We didn't want to do any of that terrible stuff! We didn't mean to hurt anybody!

Spec Ops asks us why we keep coming back to this particular bloody power fantasy, and exposes the sorts of mental gymnastics we have to engage in to spend an entire story straight-up murdering dudes without expecting any moral or emotional fallout. It shows just how much we will divorce ourselves from our own ethics and judgement in order to progress a story in a game; because that's what we expect to have to do.

And, as it keeps telling us, all we would have to do to avoid experiencing any of that is stop.

 

[Weaver]

"None of this would have happened if you had just stopped."

The Line gives us situations where we know we'll have to do horrific things to progress. So why do we continue? And after we blunder from atrocity to atrocity, why are we surprised that our actions aren't vindicated?

"We didn't have a choice!" to quote Walker directly. While Walker justifies his murderous rampage up until it is completely impossible to deny things were his fault, we the audience shift responsibility from ourselves and onto the game itself. We aren't bad people! We were just looking for something to entertain us! We didn't want to do any of that terrible stuff! We didn't mean to hurt anybody!

Spec Ops asks us why we keep coming back to this particular bloody power fantasy, and exposes the sorts of mental gymnastics we have to engage in to spend an entire story straight-up murdering dudes without expecting any moral or emotional fallout. It shows just how much we will divorce ourselves from our own ethics and judgement in order to progress a story in a game; because that's what we expect to have to do.

And, as it keeps telling us, all we would have to do to avoid experiencing any of that is stop.

What if I don't play this kind of game? What is it supposed to mean to me then?

The only reason I picked up spec ops was because I heard it's story was amazing, and it really wasn't.
Nor did I feel bad for a single thing Walker did in the game, because it's all Walker could do. The story was written, the stage was set and I was just moving him along through his paces. Is it my fault? Sure, let's say for the sake of argument it's my fault for playing the game and making Walker do these things. Why would I feel bad? None of it is real. It's not like I enjoyed a second of the game, either; so it can't guilt me into "why do you enjoy virtual killing so much?!"

Was it I that killed Eddard Stark in ASOIAF because I read it happened? Of course not, the narrative was written and designed before hand and it could only ever play out in one way.

 

[Hyenatempest]

Back from the land of the dead?

Yeah yeah.

I think my favorite A.I script was the poor guy who runs to meet you on the receiving end of the zip line. The moment you grab it he just comes out of nowhere and stands there for a good 5 seconds, and then *bam* - dramatic takedown.

And the whole mannequin thing, thought my videocard was done for. When I realized it was part of the game it was pretty cool, though.

I definitely felt there was some problems with the game, and I'm probably not qualified to make a true opinion, but I felt the idea behind a lot of the events was more of an exploration of the medium as a whole. The exploration of character to player was an extension of why people seem to buy into the whole modern fps gritty shooter craze in general. Why do you play these games? If video games are escapist in nature, then why do you choose to do this specifically? "You're here because you want to be something you're not. a hero." Perhaps even the use of scripted events were meant to speak to the nature of heavily scripted events in the other games of the genre. In the Cod/battlefield series you do a scripted event to kill the bad guys and save the good guys and be a hero. And, by extension they were using the same method to make you a war criminal instead. You have no choice but to throwing knife the main villain or die in Cod. and you have no choice but to burn the civillians or die in Spec ops.

I know that's not really a good defense for gameplay issues, but I also think that the timing is right for it. I'm willing to play a not-so-stellar game if it offers something new, and in this case the story was something that, while not in itself new, was something few games have explored, and never to that extent.

 

[Hyenatempest]

derp, clicked the wrong "quote" button.

 

[Hyenatempest]

Just recounting the entire story and occasionally pausing to give your criticisms doesn't really constitute a review. More like a recap with a fews asides sprinkled throughout.

Recounting a game and pausing for criticism is pretty much a review. This piece is mostly chronological, maybe that's tacky? I don't know. There's a legitimate opinion in each paragraph here, but I mean hey, thanks for the feedback. I'll work on that.

Without you, it doesn't get done, and that makes you an accomplice.

I just can't wrap my head around an excuse that lame. You're the accomplice, man, because you played the game.

I kept playing because Dubai was really beautifully done, and also because I'm not the type of guy to walk out on movies I'm not feeling, much less turn off a game because I'm a little offended. I spent money on it, so yes, I'll continue committing whatever horrible crimes it wants me to.

Spoiler

I'll destroy the city's entire water supply and pretend like that's completely logical.

I'll act totally surprised when that plan backfires. Whatever it needs me to do for it to work, I'll give it a fair shake.

I definitely felt there was some problems with the game, and I'm probably not qualified to make a true opinion, but I felt the idea behind a lot of the events was more of an exploration of the medium as a whole. The exploration of character to player was an extension of why people seem to buy into the whole modern fps gritty shooter craze in general. Why do you play these games? If video games are escapist in nature, then why do you choose to do this specifically? "You're here because you want to be something you're not. a hero." Perhaps even the use of scripted events were meant to speak to the nature of heavily scripted events in the other games of the genre. In the Cod/battlefield series you do a scripted event to kill the bad guys and save the good guys and be a hero. And, by extension they were using the same method to make you a war criminal instead. You have no choice but to throwing knife the main villain or die in Cod. and you have no choice but to burn the civillians or die in Spec ops.

I know that's not really a good defense for gameplay issues, but I also think that the timing is right for it. I'm willing to play a not-so-stellar game if it offers something new, and in this case the story was something that, while not in itself new, was something few games have explored, and never to that extent.

 

[Norrdicus]

Perhaps even the use of scripted events were meant to speak to the nature of heavily scripted events in the other games of the genre. In the Cod/battlefield series you do a scripted event to kill the bad guys and save the good guys and be a hero. And, by extension they were using the same method to make you a war criminal instead.

This is actually a rather novel way of looking at it, especially when people complain that none of the stuff that happened is their fault because "they had no choice"

Do these same people throw objections when through heavily scripted events, the other games make them look like a massive war hero and messiah? Do they ever throw the criticism of "I deserved none of this glory and praise, it was just the game playing itself, this is insulting" at those games?